The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Julia K. Duncan

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THROUGH THE PICTURE

  Florence was in the studio alone. Miss Mabee had been called away to New York. The fire in the hearth had burned out. Florence had not troubled to rebuild it. The place seemed cold, lonely, deserted. As she sat there musing, she seemed to hear the words of Poe’s Raven: “Never more.”

  Never more what? Well, surely never again would she believe in those who told fortunes by reading cards, gazing into a crystal ball, or studying stars.

  “Fakers all,” she murmured. “Simple, harmless people, most of them; but fakes for all that! They—”

  She broke short off to listen. Had she caught some sound of movement in the room? It did not seem possible. The door was securely locked. The door? Two doors really. She recalled discovering a secret panel door at the side of the room.

  “Just behind that picture,” she told herself.

  The picture, on which she bestowed a fleeting glance, was the one Miss Mabee had prepared for the little show to be put on for Tum Morrow’s benefit, the paper picture through which Jeanne was supposed to jump. “Wonder if that show will ever come off?” she mused. “Wonder—”

  She sprang to her feet. This time there was a sound. Yes, and she wanted to scream. There, between two paintings of gypsy life, was a face, an ugly, fat, leering face. She knew that face. It was the man she had seen in the professor’s room on that night when she went down the rope. Madame Zaran had sent him. Her illicit business of telling fake fortunes was being ruined by Florence’s investigations and reports. She was seeking revenge.

  How had the man entered the room? One other question was more pressing: how was she to get out?

  The man was between her and the entrance. He was close to the stairway that led to the balcony. She was trapped—or was she? There was the secret panel door.

  “That picture is directly in front of it,” she thought. “Too close. I can’t get round it. But I could—” her heart skipped a beat. “I could go through it. Too bad to spoil Tum’s big party too—”

  The man was advancing upon her. With hands outstretched, eyes gleaming, he seemed some monstrous beast about to seize a bird of rare plumage.

  She hesitated no longer. She sprang to the right, then dashed three steps forward to go crashing through that picture.

  Was the man taken by surprise? Beyond doubt he was. At any rate, Florence was through that door and had completely lost herself in a maze of slanting beams and rafters before she had time to think of her next move. And from the studio there came no sound.

  She could not well go back, even though she knew the way, so she groped forward. After ten minutes of this, she caught a gleam of light. It came from under a door. Remembering that nearly all the people in the world are decent, honest folks, she knocked boldly.

  The door was thrown open. There, framed in light, stood Tum Morrow.

  “Tum!” she exclaimed, all but falling into his arms. “Tum! How glad I am to see you!”

  “Why—what—what’s happened?” He stared in surprise. “Come on in and tell me.”

  The story was soon told. “And Tum,” Florence ended with a note of dismay, “I ruined that picture! I had to. That puts an end to your big show.”

  “Don’t let that trouble you.” The boy smiled happily. “Only yesterday Miss Mabee fixed up something quite wonderful for me. She has a friend, a director of music in a college. He wants someone to play the part of concertmeister in his orchestra and direct the strings in their practice. I have been given a musical scholarship.”

  “And you’re going to college! How grand! Shake!” Florence held out a hand.

  “Grand enough,” Tum agreed. “Now, however, you are the burning question of the hour. How and when are you going back to the studio?”

  “How and when?” Florence repeated gloomily.

  “Tell you what!” Tum exclaimed. “I’ve got a gun—a regular cannon. My dad used it in the war. Suppose we load it up and march on the enemy. If necessary, I’ll play the ‘Anvil Chorus’ on that old cannon, and there may be less trouble in the world after I am through.”

  “Grand idea! Lead the way!” Florence was on her feet.

  By a secret passage known only to Tum, they made their way to the studio entrance. Their expected battle, however, did not come off. They found the studio silent and quite deserted.

  “We’ll stack our arms, pitch our tents, build a fire and—” Tum hesitated.

  “And serve rations,” Florence finished for him with a laugh.

  Florence was a good cook. Tum was a good eater, and, if the truth must be told, so was Florence. The quantities of food consumed there by the fire was nothing short of scandalous. But then, who was there to complain?

  “Well—” Florence settled back in her big chair at last. “The enemy marched on us tonight. Tomorrow we shall march on the enemy. I’ll hunt up Patrick Moriarity. He’ll call in a police squad. We’ll raid Madame Zaran’s place. Yes, and we’ll call on the voodoo priestess as well.”

  “The voodoo priestess and Madame Zaran—are they friends?” Tum asked in surprise.

  “Far from that.” Florence sat up in her chair. “They’re the bitterest enemies. You see, they’re both engaged in the same crooked game. Each hoped to reap a rich harvest from June Travis’ innocence.”

  “How did you find out all that?” Tum stared at her with frank admiration.

  “I’ve guessed it for some time. Two days ago I proved it.” Florence was away with a good story. “I felt quite sure that the voodoo priestess was reared in Chicago, not in the Black Republic of Haiti. To prove this was very simple.” She laughed. “You see, Haiti used to be a French colony. Even today everyone down there speaks French. So, too, would a real voodoo priestess from that island. On my last visit to her I took along a friend who speaks French fluently. I had instructed her to talk French to me in this black woman’s presence. More than that, she was to say things like this: ‘She’s a humbug. She is a big black impostor!’”

  “That,” said Tum, “must have got a rise out of her.”

  “Not a bit of it.” Florence laughed again. “She got mad, but not at what we said. She objected to the way we said it. She couldn’t understand a word of French, that’s sure, for we had hardly started when she turned on us, her eyes bulging with anger as she said, ‘Here, you! Don’t you dare speak none of that ugly foreign stuff in dis place! De spirit of de big black Emperor, he objects!’

  “And to think!” Florence exclaimed, “French was probably the only language her big black Emperor ever spoke.

  “Well then,” she went on after a while, “I asked her why she didn’t gaze into a crystal ball, the way Madame Zaran did. I told her of the moving figures I had seen in Madame’s glass ball. I said Madame would probably get all of June’s money.

  “All the time I was talking she was getting blacker and blacker with anger. And the things she said about Madame Zaran! They couldn’t be put in a book, I can tell you.

  “Some of the things, though, were interesting, for I am sure she does the same things herself. She said that when Madame Zaran has a rich patron she bribes a maid in the patron’s home, a hair-dresser or someone else, to tell all about her. Then when the rich patron returns for a reading, don’t you see, she can tell her the most amazing things about her past? Oh, they’re a great pair, the priestess and Madame Zaran. I’d like to be around if they met in a dark spot at night. But I won’t,” Florence sighed, “for tomorrow is our zero hour. When the police are through with them, they’ll be in no fighting mood.”

  “I rather guess not!” said Tum. Then, “If you feel things are O. K. I’ll be going. Keep my cannon if you like.”

  “I—I’d like to.” Florence put out a hand.

  “You see,” explained Tum, “the way you play the ‘Anvil Chorus’ on it, you just grip it here, pull on this little trigger with your forefinger, and it does the rest.”

  “Thanks! And good-night.” Florence flashed him a dazzling smile. />
  CHAPTER XXV

  A VISIT IN THE NIGHT

  Excitement regarding the discovery of that ancient pottery was all over when, at a rather late hour that night, Jeanne crept beneath the blankets in the chilly little room under the rafters in the fisherman’s cabin on Isle Royale.

  As she lay there in the darkness and silence that night brings, she thought again of the startling news Vivian had wanted to flash out over her tiny radio station to all the world, the word that the airplane D.X.123 had been found.

  “Vivian will not send it until I say ‘Yes,’” she assured herself. “She is the kind of girl who can keep a secret—a really true friend. And yet, I wonder if I have the right to ask her to remain silent?”

  As she closed her eyes, she saw again the wistful, almost mournful look on the face of June Travis. Then she fell asleep.

  She did not sleep long. She was wakened by loud banging on the cabin door.

  “Let us in!” a voice called huskily.

  A light appeared, reflected on the roof above Jeanne’s head. She heard the fisherman say, “Who are you?”

  She caught the answer clear and plain: “I am John Travis.”

  Ten minutes later Jeanne was listening to the strange, all but unbelievable story of John Travis, who was, in very truth, the father of her friend June.

  Relying upon the word of a dying veteran prospector, John Travis and a friend, who was an air pilot, had flown far into the north of Canada in quest of gold.

  They had discovered gold, but had disabled their plane. The story of the years that followed was one of hardships, failure and final success.

  “There we were,” the voice of John Travis went on, “with our plane wrecked in the heart of a frozen wilderness.” He stared at the glowing hearth as if he would see again that great white emptiness, hear again the wail of those rushing northern gales.

  “We had food for a year. But where were we? We could not tell. We began exploring. Little by little, we widened our circle until one day I came upon a low falls where the water ran so swiftly that even in winter it was not frozen over. And at the edge of that falls, where a low eddy had deposited it, was a handful of sand.” He took a long breath. “In that sand there was a gleam of gold.

  “He who has not felt it—” he spoke slowly. “He who has not lived in the North can tell nothing of what the call of the North is, nor the grip the search for gold gets upon your very soul.

  “Why did we not come back sooner? How could one leave one’s own people so long, desert an only child? Gold!” He clenched his knotty hands tight. “Gold! We had found gold. At first it was only a little. As days, months passed, we found more and more. And always, always—” The gleam of a gambler shone in his eyes as he spread his hands wide. “Always, just before us, like a mirage on the desert, was the motherlode, the pocket of gold where nuggets were piled in one great heap. We would find it tomorrow—tomorrow.

  “Gold,” he repeated softly. “Gold. It’s all there in the cabin of that plane at the bottom of that little lost lake. We’ll lift the plane and the gold when the spring thaw comes. And then, my child, my June shall be rich. And you, my friends—” his eyes swept the little circle, “you shall not go unrewarded.”

  “But think of the peril to June,” Jeanne said in a low, serious tone.

  “I left her in good hands.”

  “But now she is a young lady, sixteen. Her birthday—is it the twenty-first? That must be very soon. Then she gets her money. And money means danger.”

  “Money—danger?” The man brushed his hand before his eyes.

  “But let me finish. Indians came, fine bronze-faced fellows we could trust. We gave them gold, bound them to secrecy by an oath known only to their tribe, and hired them to bring us food.

  “So the years passed until, one day, a plane came zooming in from the south. And at the sight of men of our own race, somehow our blood got on fire. As they talked of cities, of bright lights and music, of pictures, dancing and song, of autos and airplanes and all our great country’s progress, my heart seemed ready to burst with the desire to become a part of it all again.

  “Well,” he sighed once more, “they flew away to return a little later with parts for our plane. We paid them with our gold mine, what there is left of it. We sailed away into the blue with our gold. We were headed for Chicago and would have made it, too, if fog hadn’t caught us. It did catch us, as you know. We tried to land on ice. We were successful. We were saved. But the ice gave way, the plane sank!

  “But now—” he sprang to his feet. “Now we are safe again. And soon, please God, I shall be with my child again. And this time I am ready to swear it on the open Bible, I shall never again leave her alone!

  “Until now,” he ended, “we did not know where we were.”

  “But now you know!” Jeanne exclaimed. “Soon all the world shall know. Vivian! Sandy! The radio! We are to be the bearers of good tidings, of great joy!”

  CHAPTER XXVI

  IN WHICH SOME THINGS ARE WELL FINISHED

  “We’ll just get the janitor to go up with us,” said Patrick Moriarity as he and Florence arrived at the building in which Madame Zaran conducted her readings. “They’re gone, more than likely.”

  And so they were. The room, as they approached it, was dark and appeared deserted.

  As, under police orders, the janitor opened the door, Florence once again felt a thrill run up her spine. In her mind she felt again, as on that first day, the grip of those bony fingers on her shoulders. Once again she saw the shadow against those midnight blue draperies—the shadow of “Satan”—this time in imagination alone.

  “Deserted as a tomb,” was Patrick’s conclusion. “We’ll just have a look.” Florence had told him of all the strange doings that had gone on here.

  “What’s this?” he muttered as they came upon a narrow stairway hidden among the draperies.

  Together they mounted the stairs to arrive at a still narrower platform. Here on a stand they discovered a small moving-picture projector.

  “I thought maybe it would be that,” was Patrick’s only comment as he focused the machine, then turned on the motor.

  To Florence’s vast surprise, the crystal ball, reposing on the table on the floor below, at once became alive. On its gleaming surface tiny human figures began to move.

  “Quite simple,” was the young officer’s comment. “Moving pictures focused upon a small screen behind the ball—that’s all it was.”

  “And they made the pictures especially for their—their clients!” Florence’s tone spoke her astonishment. “Posed people made up to look like them.”

  “Rather costly, I’d say!” said Patrick. “But then, they were playing for big stakes. I have no doubt they’ve played their little game before, perhaps many times.

  “Come!” he said a moment later, “We’ll go have a look on this black priestess of yours. We may find her at home.”

  They did find the priestess, and many more besides. In fact, there had been quite an affair at her studio that very morning. Truth was, as Florence, leaning on Patrick’s arm, looked in upon the scene, she thought there had been nothing quite like it before.

  “It—it’s like a scene on the stage,” she whispered.

  “The cold gray dawn of the morning after,” Patrick murmured.

  And indeed that was just what it looked to be. In the center of the room, her hands still clawing as if for unearned gold, Madame Zaran stood leaning on a table. She seemed dizzy. The reason was a rapidly swelling bruise on her forehead. At her feet lay her thick-necked guard, he who had entered the studio on the previous night. He was out for good. So, too, were two black men in one corner. As for the Professor and the voodoo priestess, they were seated upon the floor, staring at one another for all the world like two spent wrestlers pausing to regain their breath. As Florence and the young officer stood there looking on in stupefied silence, a black goat with golden horns appeared from somewhere. He let out a loud b-a-a, then charged
the unfortunate Madame Zaran. He hit her behind the knees, and she collapsed like an empty sack.

  “It looks to me,” Patrick drawled, “as if there had been a fight.”

  “Sure does look that way,” said a strange voice.

  Florence whirled about to find herself looking into a face that resembled a new moon—large thin nose, sharp protruding chin, eyes that bulged slightly. “The Devil,” she thought without saying it.

  “You’ve seen me before.” The man favored her with a friendly smile.

  “I—I guess I’ve seen your shadow more than once,” the girl managed to reply.

  “Handy sort of shadow,” the man chuckled. “You see, I’m a city detective. I’ve been on this case for some time. Now it would seem that all that’s needed is an ambulance.”

  “I’ll call one,” Patrick said, hurrying away.

  Fifteen minutes later, the whole company, including the goat, were on their way to the police station. Shortly thereafter, the greater number of them were transferred to the hospital.

  Of quite a different nature was the meeting in Miss Mabee’s studio two days later.

  They were gathered there in the studio, Florence and June, Miss Mabee, Tum Morrow and Rodney Angel, when there came the sound of footsteps on the stairs, followed by a rattle at the bell. June started forward impulsively. Florence held her back. “Wait!” she whispered.

  Miss Mabee pressed a button. The door opened slowly, and in walked Sandy, Jeanne and a short, stout man. They, the newcomers, all wore heavy airplane coats and carried airplane traveling bags in their hands.

  “Well?” The man studied the waiting group. When his eyes fell upon June they lighted up as if by a touch of fire.

  “June!” His voice was husky. “How big! How beautiful you are!” Next instant the girl was in his arms.

  And after that, as always, there was a feast. At this feast John Travis made a brief speech. “There’s gold on Isle Royale.” He spoke with feeling. “More gold at the bottom of that little lake than any man can use wisely in a lifetime. When it’s been recovered, I shall charter the finest airplane in the country and take you all on a trip around the world. What do you say to that?”